The Terrible Thesaurus Game

Recommended Posts

(Note: This game will probably be very difficult for anyone who doesn't know English very well. It's okay if you have trouble! Do the best you can, and feel free to ask me questions.)

Common English compound words and simple phrases have been separated into their component words and then run through a thesaurus. The results were recombined... but they no longer make any sense! The following list is the result of this bizarre translation. Can you figure out what the original words were? You may have to think laterally, because the results were chosen based on what sounded good, rather than for accuracy. Here are some examples to get you started:

Rules:
The game is open from now until Tuesday, July 25. I don't have a set time, but expect it to be sometime in the afternoon for those of you in the US. So later if you're in Europe, or in the morning if you are in Australia. Submit your answers to me in a private message. DO NOT POST GUESSES IN THIS THREAD. You can make as many guesses as you want (although I would prefer lots of guesses in a single message, since that makes it easier for me to handle). A correct guess is worth one point, and I will reply to you in the private message your correct guesses and current score. You may use a thesaurus or any other resource you wish. You may ask questions or bounce ideas around in this thread or anywhere else, but please do not post or pass along the answers to anyone (although it's not like I can really enforce it). I will post the full list of answers and everyone's score in this thread once the game is done. If a translation is only answered correctly by one person, that person gets two bonus points. But this is meant to be fun, not a serious competition.

Again, send guesses to me in PMs. NO POSTING GUESSES OR ANSWERS IN THIS THREAD. Thank you.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

So, umm, general question for the audience: is "Io" ever used to mean anything in English besides one of the moons of Jupiter? I'm not sure how the proper name of a moon (or mythological figure, I guess) could have synonyms, but I'm also stumped as to what other possible meaning the word could have.

Share on other sites

So, umm, general question for the audience: is "Io" ever used to mean anything in English besides one of the moons of Jupiter? I'm not sure how the proper name of a moon (or mythological figure, I guess) could have synonyms, but I'm also stumped as to what other possible meaning the word could have.

the dota-playing Past Sylae got stuck thinking that Io == Wisp, but i couldn't come up with anything. Probably not a good clue though

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

So, umm, general question for the audience: is "Io" ever used to mean anything in English besides one of the moons of Jupiter? I'm not sure how the proper name of a moon (or mythological figure, I guess) could have synonyms, but I'm also stumped as to what other possible meaning the word could have.

According to dictionary.com, it's also the name of a species of hawk from Hawaii.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

This is great. I had ambitions to make a mobile word game but gave up on it, and this reminds me of that because too many word games are just a boring test of who has the biggest vocabulary. This kind of does that but it's also more about lateral thinking? I don't know, I just love wordplay and I think most games miss the point.

Sending my first round of guesses now. It got really difficult around the middle, but then towards the end I spotted a few (I thought) easier ones. We'll see if my instincts are right, I didn't use a thesaurus or anything.

I liked all the submissions, but my favorite is Slarty's. So Slarty gets a bonus point, bringing his total to 39 points. Congratulations, Slarty, you have the highest score. You win... absolutely nothing! But good job figuring out all the answers.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Opalescent can be white-ish? I dunno. That one was a ride. It was brute force brainstorming plus a little luck: I was trying out phrases with "clear" and hit on "clear way" which... I guess sounded like a real phrase to me at 4 AM... and that sort of opposite phrase is what got me there. Here's my full PM trail from that one (which doesn't cover a lot of worse ideas that never made it to Diki):

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Hahahahaha! First, wow, that's a lot of guesses! Second, wow, we had some of the same ideas for this one. My three guesses for that one were "rainbow road," "pearly gate," and "bright idea." I don't think I would have gotten to "milky" as a synonym of "opalescent" in a hundred years, though. Nicely done!

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

How did you (Diki AND Slarty!) connect milky and opalescent??? I mean, doesn't milky = white, and opalescent = multicolored?

It has been a very long time since Dikiyoba came up with the clues (it's been sitting on Dikiyoba's computer for at least a year), but certain definitions of opalescent define it as a white iridescence (similar to mother-of-pearl and other pearl-related words), and certain thesauruses include "milky" as a synonym of opalescent. So it's not the most accurate of translations... but bad translations were sort of the point.